Turkey/Kurdistan: Stop the Terror against the Masses!

Down with the reactionary Erdogan-government and its war against the Kurdish people!

Statement of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 14.10.2015, www.thecommunists.net

A cowardly and despicable bombing against a peace demonstration took place in Ankara last Saturday, 10 October. Until now it is
known that at least 125 people were killed (according to the left-reformist HDP) and hundreds were wounded; but since Saturday the numbers of killed and wounded are continually rising. The
demonstration was organized by four trade unions to demand that the Turkish state stop its war against the Kurdish people.

Who is responsible?

Up until now it is still not completely certain who was behind the bombing. At first the Turkish government even dared to
insinuate that the leftwing nationalists of the PKK and the Stalinists of the DHKP-C were responsible. But this was simply spontaneous stupidity and impertinence. Now they are blaming the
reactionary Takfiri-Salafists of Daesh/IS which is more realistic hunch, but not the only possibility. Evidence pointing to this latter possibility is that witnesses heard the suicide bombers
chant “Allahu akbar” shortly before the explosions. Another option might be that behind this crime were reactionary fascist-nationalists like supporters of the MHP who have been responsible for
pogrom mobilizations against the Kurds during the last weeks and months; but such groups normally don’t resort to suicide-bombings. It is also possible that the reactionary-capitalist Erdogan
government itself, together with its state-apparatus, is responsible at least indirectly for the crime by deliberately not preventing it. According to such a scenario, while the massacre may have
in fact been planned and executed by IS/Daesh, the Turkish state may simply have let it happen. Evidence pointing to this possibility is that the Erdogan government is now interested in
escalating the political crisis in Turkey/Northern Kurdistan by granting itself more executive powers. The ruling class of Turkey, traditionally more aligned with the CHP and the army command, is
currently displeased with the ruling AKP and Erdogan, as these are to a certain degree affiliated with the religious rural masses and the religious urban petty-bourgeoisie. But by escalating and
transforming the situation in Turkey/Northern Kurdistan into a civil war, Erdogan might be hoping to present himself as a “national savior” and “trustable Bonaparte” (of course only from the
point of view of the capitalists).

Either way, political responsibility for the vial crime that occurred on Saturday belongs to the Erdogan government, the ruling
class of Turkey, the fascists of the MHP and the CHP. These forces whipped up the arch-reactionary chauvinism against the Kurdish people and other minorities under the pretext of the “war against
terrorism.” They often use the petty-bourgeois, left-nationalists of the PKK as an excuse to persecute the Kurdish masses, other national minorities and the Turkish revolutionary working-class
movement.

How to respond?

The Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT, Devrimci Komünist Uluslararası Eğilim in the Turkish
language) condemns this heinous terrorism against the masses by the Turkish capitalists, Saturday’s Ankara massacre being simply the highest peak yet reached in terms of the number of victims. We
wish to send our warmest condolences to the comrades, friends and family of the martyrs! Let’s honor their memory by continuing the struggle for liberation and avenging their deaths by
overthrowing the murderous capitalist state of Turkey! As a direct response towards the Ankara massacre, revolutionaries in Turkey and Northern Kurdistan should support attempts to organize a
general strike against the government. They also need to establish self-defense committees against the police violence, the fascist thugs and the pogrom attempts. There should also be an
independent investigation of the bombing under the independent control of the workers’ movement and the Kurdish national movement. Don’t trust the bourgeois courts! Send the backers of the
bombing to workers’ tribunals – only this will achieve justice!

The tasks of Turkish Revolutionaries

Revolutionaries in Turkey and in Northern Kurdistan must prevent the capitalists and their parties (AKP, MHP, CHP) from
whipping up nationalist hatred and take an unwavering stand against the government-sponsored hatred of the Kurds. Turkish revolutionaries must also develop a campaign in the defense of the
Kurdish people, defending the PKK in practice against the Turkish state while at the same time not giving any political support to their petty-bourgeois left-nationalism and guerilla-strategy
(combined with their endemic capitulationism). Revolutionaries must strive to organize anti-militarist committees in the army to undermine the reactionary war against the Kurdish people. The
campaign in defense of the Kurds should raise a slogan calling for a referendum in Southeast Turkey and fight for its implementation in practice. In this referendum the residents of every city
and village will decide whether they wants to secede from Turkey and form a new Kurdish state, if they want to remain within Turkey but be granted a large degree of autonomy, or whether they want
to retain the status quo.

This demand should also be directed towards the workers and peasants who still follow Erdogan. Revolutionaries must tell them:
“Tayyip always claims that he stands for democracy but he opposes a referendum which is the most democratic means. If the current situation escalates to a civil war – every man, women and
child that is killed will be the responsibility of Erdogan, because he could have prevented this with a simple democratic vote!” It is very important that revolutionaries find a way to get in
touch with the grass roots of the AKP – which is clearly the strongest party amongst the Turkish urban and rural toilers – and try to break them away from the party’s leadership. An essential
precondition for this is for revolutionaries to deal pedagogically with the religious faith of the Muslims, while at the same time struggle for a secular, red Turkey and Kurdistan.

The tasks of Kurdish Revolutionaries

For their part, Kurdish revolutionaries must fight from within the Kurdish masses to combine the struggle for liberation with
the aim of a United Red Kurdistan. In such a Kurdistan the working and poor masses, i.e., the working class, the poor peasantry and the urban poor will take political power and – in contrast to
Rojava – there will be a true workers’ democracy. This will also mean full democratic rights for parties and organizations who oppose PKK/PYD, but which stand for election on the basis of the
Kurdish liberation struggle. Kurdish revolutionaries must orient their struggle away from the mountains and towards the masses of the Kurdish working class, not just in Diyabakır and Batman but
in Istanbul and Ankara as well! They must fight against the capitulationism of the PKK, their collaboration of their leadership with US imperialism in Syria, their disarming of the masses, and
their anti-Marxist theory of Apoism, in addition to ideologically fighting against the concept of Kurdish nationalism, especially when this is directed against all Turks (and not simply the
fascists, the military and the police).

Turkish and Kurdish revolutionaries also have to form a single party to fight for the liberation of all the workers and the
oppressed of the region.

The Revolutionary Communist International Tendency declares:

* No to the war against the Kurds and the masses in Turkey! Prevent the army, the police and the fascists from carrying out
pogroms! Organize self-defense committees!

* Down with the reactionary-capitalist Erdogan government, but also down with the reactionary Kemalists of the CHP and the
fascists from the MHP! For a general strike against the government!

* For international solidarity of all workers and oppressed! Support the Kurdish liberation struggle!

* For a referendum in Southeast Turkey to democratically determine who wants to secede from the Turkish state!

* For a united, free and red Kurdistan!

* For the formation of an united revolutionary party in Turkey and Northern Kurdistan which will be forged in the heat of
the struggle and quenched and hardened with the blood of the martyrs!